Childhood Abuse and Neglect

In their discussion of childhood abuse and neglect, Papalia and Olds (1972) have offered the following brief definitions:

Maltreatment of children can take several different forms. Child abuse involves physical injury...Neglect is withholding of adequate care, usually physical care such as food, clothing and supervision. Emotional neglect can also occur...(p.166)

This paper examines the history of the social response to childhood abuse and neglect from colonial to contemporary times. The social forces, value systems, institutions, and differing perspectives of childhood abuse and neglect that have evolved over time are emphasized in the report.

History of Child Abuse and Neglect and the Social Response

The social response to child abuse and neglect during colonial times has been discussed by Axin and Levin (1992). The authors make the point that during these times (16th and 17th centuries), abused and neglected children were viewed as potentially productive members of society that needed to be removed from the abusive and/or neglectful family and given the opportunity to prosper--this, where prosperity was defined in essentially financial terms rather than in terms of thriving emotionally and psychologically.

The notion of viewing the family rather than simply the child as in trouble and tailoring the social response to the family as a whole was not present during colonial times. According to Abramovitz (1976), this can be unders

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l class of people (cited in Kiesler, 1979, p.1014) The establishment of this Bureau also extended the State's jurisdiction and responsibility for the welfare of children to the areas of child labor, child health and recreation, child education, and the care of the atypical child. Some of the more recent agencies and commissions created by Congress to protect the rights of children include the President's Panel on Mental Retardation (1961), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (1963), the Joint Commission on the Mental Health of Children (1965), the Office of Child Development (1967), and the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Office created in 1974 (Kiesler, 1979; Sobel, 1979). Child abuse and neglect, however, were not really noted as contemporary problems until about 1946; in fact, it was not until 1961 that the host of physical and psychoemotional consequences arising from child abuse and neglect were given the name of the Battered Child Syndrome (Shepherd, 1973). In more behavioral terms, the Battered Child Syndrome was used to refer to regular physical assault on a child by a parent with fists, sticks, hot irons, cigarettes, or other harmful objects. In the delineation of the syndrome,

Category: Psychology - C